I read that somewhere on line one day and the thought has really stuck with me. That is one reason why I usually say I have a disorder not that I am mentally ill. The brain misfires I understand and causes us to hear, see and believe strange things to be true. It is not a sickness like a cold. It is kind of like if we have a broken arm; our brains don’t work properly but with medicine they can.
So when people refer to people with Schizophrenia as schizo or schizophrenic I just cringe. I have Schizophrenia but am so much more. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a sister etc… To define me by my diagnosis is simply unfair. But life is not fair; life has taught me that. Some people will always judge us as incomplete or ill but I choose my words to describe my disorder carefully and share with a select few.
I choose as Mahatma Gandhi taught to: ‘Be the change that you wish to see in the world.’
Pax
Victoria